What I am claiming is that libertarians falsely believe that transactions between individuals in the marketplace of money, products, ideas, or even values are things that can be radically free.
Certainly neither of us believes that transactions in the current state of affairs are radically free. However, even if we had a truly constitutional limited government, transactions would still be encumbered by genetic predispositions, social conditioning, habitual behavior, peer-pressure, loyalties, traditions, the laws of physics, etc.
To say that everything is subjectively valued and traded accordingly is truly a tautology. Maybe economists didn't figure this out formally until the 1700's, but I'm sure it was considered basic common sense for centuries before that.
The above tautology, however, doesn't go to the point of Fleming's article. People will and have in the past subjectively made poor choices which have negatively impacted other members of society. In some instances we use government to discourage or prevent people from making such choices. In other cases we use social institutions such as families, church, fraternal organizations, etc. to get people back into line.
If libertarians truly just want "government" to be the only societal institution to not tell people what to do, then this is a rather simplistic philosophy. In most cases I want the mother or father of a child to be the one that tells them not to light matches near the neighbor's house. But in some cases I want it to be the police officer on his daily rounds. To say that only that institution which has the ability to make good on its threat (i.e. government) is prevented from exercising force, is basically a backhanded way of asking for anarchy.
People have never been radically free. People never will be. Asking for radical freedom may make libertarians feel good, especially since they'll never have to worry about ever having to try implementing such a plan ... in a real world.
Well, you refuted it, so you must've thought it was worth something to say people are irrational. Maybe you were just illustrating the point about irrationality by refuting a position no one here's holding, but why you'd make that point's a mystery.
What I am claiming is that libertarians falsely believe that transactions between individuals in the marketplace of money, products, ideas, or even values are things that can be radically free.
Back, it looks like, to Fleming's idea that German beer-drinkers and French wine-drinkers refutes something or other about libertarianism. I don't know of any libertarians who think market transactions are "radically free" (whatever that's supposed to mean in the first place), and I don't see how proving they aren't does anything to libertarianism. Sure, people have to buy food. Does that mean we shouldn't have a laissez faire market in food? Hardly. It means we should have one. I really don't see the point here.
Certainly neither of us believes that transactions in the current state of affairs are radically free. However, even if we had a truly constitutional limited government, transactions would still be encumbered by genetic predispositions, social conditioning, habitual behavior, peer-pressure, loyalties, traditions, the laws of physics, etc.
I must not be seeing something here, but I really don't know what any of that has to do with the proper role of government. So the market will have to obey the laws of physics. No purpetual motion machines for us. I don't think any libertarians resent that. I certainly don't.
To say that everything is subjectively valued and traded accordingly is truly a tautology. Maybe economists didn't figure this out formally until the 1700's, but I'm sure it was considered basic common sense for centuries before that.
You'd be surprised. A lot of people held, and Marxists still hold, the labor theory of value, which is a mistaken extension of the labor theory of property (which, ironically enough, Marxists reject) further than it would go.
The political implication is this: if the value of something can be known objectively (by the amount of labor put in or anything else), then government planners are capable of finding that value out and therefore capable of making rational decisions. If, on the other hand, nothing is inherently worth anything, but only how much someone is willing to pay/work/sacrifice to get it (and this of course varies from person to person), central planners cannot know how much something is worth. If they can't know that, their plans are made in the dark, and will necessarily fail. This is what happens in the real world. Communism, of course, is a total failure, but lesser form of government interference generate lesser problems, in proportion to how involved they get. The more involved the government is, the less the market pricing system (which is, ultimately, the only pricing system) will function, and the less the government is capable of knowing. The bigger government is, the less competent it's capable of being.
The above tautology, however, doesn't go to the point of Fleming's article. People will and have in the past subjectively made poor choices which have negatively impacted other members of society. In some instances we use government to discourage or prevent people from making such choices. In other cases we use social institutions such as families, church, fraternal organizations, etc. to get people back into line.
But how do you make the choice between government doing it, and other parts of society doing it? Do you just go by your gut instinct? Libertarians have a principle to determine one from the other. Do you?
If libertarians truly just want "government" to be the only societal institution to not tell people what to do, then this is a rather simplistic philosophy.
That's not what we want. We just have an idea of exactly when the government ought to tell people what to do, or rather not to do. Only a crime against someone's person or property ought to be prohibited.
To say that only that institution which has the ability to make good on its threat (i.e. government) is prevented from exercising force, is basically a backhanded way of asking for anarchy.
There are libertarians who are anarchists, and that's not what they want. They want many institutions to exercise force to protect rights, and you could have a choice of which one to hire to protect you. There are, as you can no doubt imagine, a few problems with that.
People have never been radically free. People never will be. Asking for radical freedom may make libertarians feel good, especially since they'll never have to worry about ever having to try implementing such a plan ... in a real world.
I'm not sure what you have in mind by radical freedom. Freedom to choose your own roots, John Walker-style?